Joyce Miller

[Joyce Miller]

Hi Jon, “where” and “what” did you learn about LEGO Serious Play (LSP)?

I know people from the Agile community who think that getting out a bag of LEGO bricks is an LSP workshop. I know people in top-ranked business schools who think the same thing (I work with one of them). But it isn’t.

The process is extremely powerful when applied correctly,. When used partially, incorrectly, or inappropriately, the result can be disastrous and reflects badly on the LSP brand and our own community of practitioners.

Before LSP training was available starting in 2001, a facilitator was shocked to see her client jump out the window during the initial part of a session. Fortunately, they were on the ground floor.

In addition to answering the basic questions that you are posing, if you want to understand how to use the LEGO Serious Play methodology, I would strongly encourage you to contact one of the certified LSP trainers (e.g. Per Kristiansen and Robert Rasmussen in Denmark (English, Danish), Marie Dupont in France (French), Lucio Margulis in Argentina (Spanish), Jacquie Lloyd Smith in Canada (English), Denise Myerson in Australia (English). The topic of documentation is well-covered within a training as is how to use LSP with individuals and groups to achieve powerful results.

The Serious Play Pro community welcomes all those interested in the LSP methodology and by extension, other aspects related to LEGO and what you might call “gamification”. We are currently having some internal discussions about quality management and preserving the LSP brand in the marketplace. There is some concern that people are using the term LEGO Serious Play without understanding its underlying principles and precepts. The “open source” brochure is a good starting point. But as LSP is a facilitated methodology, an LSP session is, by definition, a facilitated process. Training in the methodology can help you to understand how it functions, the needed skills building activities and purposes, and roadmapping to achieve various outcomes.

Best regards, Joyce (in Switzerland)

[Joyce Miller]

Hi Jon, did you do a facilitator training on the use of LEGO Serious Play? These kinds of issues are normally well covered. If you haven’t done a recognized training, I would highly encourage this. You will get informed about practical issues as well as inspiration and insight for using the method and materials. All the best, Joyce

[Joyce Miller]

Dear Alan – the experience that Eli conveyed was a workshop where I was the LSP facilitator. At the time, his boss had given me a remit to “sell” the change process to his senior management team, using an LSP-powered process. Thankfully the boss was just that little bit open enough to “trust the process” and what came out, i.e. an organisational structure developed by his management team reflecting some of the principles that he was trying to impose on them was a more satisfying and effective process than the imposition he had initially envisaged.

Another lens that you could look through at your current challenge rests in “change management”. In IMD (in Lausanne, Switzerland) programmes, we often use a simulation called ChangePro, which is available commercially http://www.learningways.com/changepro.html The simulation takes a morning, and is very powerful when used with a group.

Some of the points that come through in the debriefing could be worth you and your client thinking about, especially with respect to imposition or what I would call a “decree”:

Decrees works:
• When there is a widely-shared sense of crisis
• When the directive is sent by a trusted, respected leader (one who has confidence in the decision)
• When directives are expected (e.g. in authoritarian organisations)
• When top management is willing and able to enforce the directive
• When only compliance, not commitment, is required

I could share with you some additional material, for inspiration, that could be worth thinking about in terms of “where” (in the sense of being: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, resistors) are the NGO members who are targeted for the workshop. Change processes can work by understanding who to work with, watch out for, with whom to create alliances, how to use small successes to build support among the “silent majority”…

This would be easier done in a 1:1 exchange as I would scan some materials and send these to as PDFs.

Let me know (joyce@caprese.org) if that would be helpful.

[Joyce Miller]

Hi Marko, virtually all of the training (although not LSP) that I run is in developing countries and emerging markets and I use translators to do simultaneous translation. Here are some tips that have worked for me:
– make a glossary of terminology (e.g. metaphor, models, landscape) and discuss this in advance, 1:1, so that the translator understands precisely what you mean and will have prepared the correct translation
– do as much visualisation as you can, in advance (so where you have task instructions, have this already prepared on a flipchart or Powerpoint in Albanian — in English as well in case you also need to refer to it)
– if the translator is supposed to help you pick up on table discussions that will no doubt take place in Albanian, then best to prepare the translator in advance about what to look for so that the person can help to pull this out
– finding a capable translator is key!!! Should be more than a person who can simply translate
– I do a lot of work as a freelancer for the German Technical Cooperation, although I have not worked in Albania (only in nearby Montenegro); as GTZ does a lot of capacity-building on-the-ground with people, they tend to work with very able translators who are freelance and locally-based. I could possibly help in making the link to help you find a translator..in case you don’t already have this covered

Hope this helps, Joyce

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